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May Day Alert! May Day Alert!

Now that the budget is tighter than a high wire string and Congress some Republicans are so tight, they squeak as they walk (and it has to be bad if I’m saying that because I tend to lean to the right), one portion of the budget that should be expanded is mental health services as we are in an emergency.

Someone on some message board pointed out that there is neither more nor less all-around craziness just that it’s better documented. The Internet and all the world is flat theories aside, this is a special Rogues Hall.

Moments before flying a plane into his mother’s house, 47 year-old Konrad Schmidt, called her to make sure she was home. He was allegedly angry about his parents divorce, though it appears that something else was bothering him.

Most people get angry at their parents at some point, but they usually take less drastic measures. Had Schmidt gotten help, he most likely would have emoted in some other way. He might have written in a journal, a letter to his parents that he never mailed or gone out for a drink or two. But now he’s either taken up residence in a jail or a psych ward.

Seventeen year-old Tyler Hadley is another member of that group. The Florida teen bludgeoned his parents to death and covered their bodies with books and papers before hosting a party for 60 teens that he posted on Facebook. His best friend called the police after he showed him the bodies. They are treating the vicious attack as a premeditated crime.

In my day, about the worst thing that any kid did was fail to clean his room or run away from home for a few hours. Even so, about the craziest incident that happened was when a neighbor decided to take the family car out for a spin on his learner’s permit when his parents were out one night and wound up driving the car through a neighbor’s living room window. But he didn’t first call to see if they were home, though it did cancel his learner’s permit for a while.

Then everything bottomed out with Woodstock, the free sex and love era and when someone decided to tell kids that they are geniuses, even if they don’t know how to add or read and write.

I don’t know if it is hands off parenting, lousy movies and videos, drugs or something else, though the parenting gets my vote because someone had to (sort of) raise them. Let’s face it because so much can go wrong, mental health services or a meteor may be the only answer.

Lizzie Borden was just one nut, but today there are the Konrad Schmidts and Taylor Hadleys and child-killer Levi Arons to contend with. If they aren’t signs for a massive mental health budget, we might as well hoist up the mayday flag now.